"Midwest Princess" Chappell Roan has taken the internet and music world by storm this year.
Her single "Good Luck, Babe!" has been on the Billboard Hot 100 list for 18 weeks as of mid-August — yes, 18 weeks! — and as of Aug. 16, she had seven total songs on the chart. That includes one of her most viral hits, "Pink Pony Club."
As Roan's music climbs the charts, we couldn't help but wonder: Is the Pink Pony Club a real place?
And it turns out ... it is! Well, sort of.
When did Chappell Roan release 'Pink Pony Club?'
Roan actually first dropped "Pink Pony Club" back in 2020 as a single. She was subsequently dropped by her then-record label, Atlantic Records, she told Rolling Stone in a 2022 article.
"Pink Pony Club" then was re-released on her 2023 debut album — this time with Island Records and Amusement Records — "The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess."
What inspired 'Pink Pony Club?'
In a May 2020 interview with The Daily Shuffle, Roan said that she wrote "Pink Pony Club" after visiting a gay bar for the first time in West Hollywood, California.
"I went to a gay bar called The Abbey in West Hollywood and was completely changed by the entire experience," she said at the time. "I was enthralled by the go-go dancers and thought about how amazing it would be to be one, so I wrote a song about it."
The Abbey is one of the most famous gay bars/nightclubs in Los Angeles and was even the subject of a short-lived show on E!, "What Happens at The Abbey," in 2017.
Later, in a March 2021 interview with Headliner Magazine, Roan would elaborate about that fateful night. Roan said that she struggled to find her footing after moving from her small hometown in Missouri to Los Angeles when she found herself out one evening in West Hollywood.
She said she was "sober the entire night" as she danced the night away at The Abbey.
"All of a sudden I realized I could truly be any way I wanted to be, and no one would bat an eye,” she told the outlet. "It was so different from home where I always had such a hard time being myself and felt like I’d be judged for being different or being creative. I just felt overwhelmed with complete love and acceptance, and from then on I started writing songs as the real me."
In a video shared to her YouTube channel in April 2020, she said that watching the go-go dancers at the Abbey, something "sparked in me."
"Like, I want to do that, I want to be a go-go dancer," she says. "So I just wrote a song about it."
Where did the pink come in?
Roan is from Willard, Missouri, a small town about 12 miles northwest of Springfield. In a Feb. 2023 interview with the Visit Springfield website, she revealed that the "pink" part of the "Pink Pony Club" was inspired by a since-closed strip club called Pink Cadillac she used to pass by.
"The building used to be all hot pink," she said. "They had neon signage and it was so beautiful. I remember growing up and passing it ... I always adored it and wanted to go in there, but didn’t realize it was a strip club."
